Mundane Monday News: Prop. 8 Standing, LGBT Mormons, Ending Planned Parenthood Funding…

*IRS Revokes Antigay Group’s Tax Exempt Status

*Sean Hayes Will Return In New Sitcom

*New Book Explores Coco Chanel’s Bisexual Romances A new book sheds light on the life outside of art and fashion that influential designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel led.  In Coco Chanel: An Intimate Life, biographer Lisa Chaney wrote that Chanel had intimate affairs with other women as well as artists like Salvador Dalí and a German man named Hans Günther von Dincklage who also might have been a Nazi spy. According to the publisher, Chaney was able to draw upon newly discovered letters and records to connect the missing pieces of Chanel’s storied life. 

*Prop. 8 Standing Arguments to be Televised Oral arguments on a legal standing question in the Proposition 8 case will be televised live in September, according to a California Supreme Court spokeswoman. Of the September 6 hearing, SF Appeal reportsthat “because of public interest in the case, the court has approved a live statewide television broadcast of the arguments on the California Channel, a public affairs network,” according to spokeswoman Lynn Holton.           

* Researchers Focus on LGBT Mormons  In what may be a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Utah State University are reaching out to nearly 1,000 LGBT Mormons to learn more about their experience within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The 149-question survey is being distributed via gay-positive Mormon groups, as well as networks for those who believe that sexual orientation can be changed, the Associated Press reports. Among other questions, the study asks respondents whether they have suffered violence or teasing within the church community, and how they “view God’s response” to their sexual orientation.

*Why Rick Santorum’s Argument About Same-Sex Marriage Leading To Polygamy Is So Wrong

*New Hampshire May Hold Vote On Repealing Marriage Law Ahead Of State Primary

*Fox News Largely Ignores Pending Repeal Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell A new Equality Matters analysis finds that Fox News largely ignored the government’s decision to certify the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, covering the story just 5 times between July 21 and July 24. Comparatively, “CNN covered the administration’s certification 26 times, MSNBC covered the story 11 times” and “ran a number of longer segments”

*Kansas Law Ending Planned Parenthood Funding Blocked By Federal Judge  WICHITA, Kan. — A federal judge has blocked a new Kansas law that would strip federal family planning funding from a Planned Parenthood chapter in the state. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten issued his ruling Monday. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri had argued that it would have suffered irreparable harm if a temporary injunction were not issued. It contended it would be forced to close one or more clinics and raise fees.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              *U.S. Cities Spending The Most On Health Care: Bundle.com

Stand With Planned Parenthood ProChoice Hanger Necklace – All Profits Go To Planned Parenthood

 Wow, powerful message to wear around your neck. I fully support! 

The hanger has sadly become a symbol of the pro-choice movement, reminding us of the horrors women endure when abortion access is restricted.With the purchase of this necklace, all profits will be donated to Planned Parenthood where it will be distributed to wherever the need is greatest. These donations will help provide low-income women with access to much needed healthcare treatment and prevention services. If you would prefer the donation go to your local Planned Parenthood, please make note of that in your order or convo me.

Handpicked News: Planned Parenthood Defunded, HIV-carrier gives birth, Picket Betty Ford’s Funeral, Sean Connery Nude

HIV-carrier gives birth to healthy twins A week after Hadassah University Medical Center announced the birth of its first healthy baby fathered by an HIV carrier, Rambam Medical Center reported on Monday its first two births of healthy babies, whose mother is HIV positive. The Hadassah baby was made possible by the special rinsing of semen to remove the deadly virus; the Rambam twins born to a woman in her 30s were produced with in-vitro fertilization.

 

Director hopes new film will be ‘Brokeback Mountain’ for atheists “This could be the Brokeback Mountain moment for atheists, our tipping point, when we finally get the attention we deserve,” Chapman wrote on the film’s website. “Although books have put atheists into the intellectual mainstream, The Ledge is the first Hollywood drama to target the broader movie-going public with an openly atheist hero in a production big enough to attract A-list stars. This is unprecedented.”

Bachmann Won’t Say Whether Clinics Try to Convert Gays

Rep. Michele Bachmann claims it would be immoral to say whether her husband’s clinics perform so-called reparative therapy on gay people. “Those matters are protected by patient-client confidentiality,” her campaign staff said in a statement issued to ABC News, which is reporting on the issue tonight. “The Bachmanns are in no position ethically, legally, or morally to discuss specific courses of treatment concerning the clinic’s patients.”

Illinois Scraps Catholic Charities Adoption Contracts The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services sent letters last week to
Catholic Charities affiliates in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet, Springfield, and Belleville saying the state could not accept the contracts for the fiscal year that began July 1 because “your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act,” which would require state contractors not to discriminate against couples in civil unions, which are available to both gay and straight partners.

Westboro Baptist Church To Picket Betty Ford’s Funeral

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church has announced plans to picket this week’s funeral services for former first lady Betty Ford in California and Michigan. The website of the Topeka, Kansas-based church said the fringe group will demonstrate at Ford’s funerals because she divorced her first husband William Warren prior to marrying the late president Gerald R. Ford.

Planned Parenthood Defunded In New Hampshire Until July 1, a low-income New Hampshire woman paid an average of $5 to fill a birth
control pill prescription at any of the state’s six Planned Parenthood clinics. She might have even gotten the birth control for free, depending on her poverty level. But since the New Hampshire Executive Council voted to cancel the state’s contract with Planned Parenthood, a woman now has to pay anywhere from $40 to over $100 for birth control pills at a regular pharmacy.

Sean Connery Nude.. Farrah Portrait Lawsuit.. Artist Paints With Lips.. Ice Cube’s Art Project

 

Handpicked Headlines: Booze-Free Event, Weiner, Palin, Alcatraz Triathlon & More

Agriculture Industry Fears Disaster If Illegal Immigration Enforcement Program E-Verify Is Implemented WASHINGTON — The agriculture industry fears a disaster is on the horizon if the one bit of new immigration policy that Congress seems to agree on becomes law.

Indiana Abortion Showdown Could Cost State $4.3 Billion NDIANAPOLIS — A looming showdown over Indiana’s new law that cuts funding for the Planned Parenthood organization may test how far Republican-led states are willing to go in pressing their tough new anti-abortion agendas. 

France’s First Gay Marriage “It’s a symbol for millions of gays and lesbians who would like to have the same rights,” Nicot said of her marriage. France’s constitutional court upheld the nation’s ban on same-sex marriage in January.

Anthony Weiner Twitter Scandal: New Photos Emerge (VIDEO)  The controversy surrounding the lewd photographsent from Rep. Anthony Weiner‘s (D-N.Y.) Twitter account took a new turn Monday. Andrew Breitbart‘s website BigGovernment.com claims that a new woman has come forward with photos, chats, and emails sent to her by the congressman that suggest the two were involved in “an online, consensual relationship involving the mutual exchange of intimate photographs.”

Sarah Palin On Paul Revere Ride: I Didn’t Get History Wrong (VIDEO) WASHINGTON (AP/The Huffington Post) –– Sarah Palin says she didn’t mess up her history on Paul Revere. The potential 2012 presidential candidate was in Boston on Thursday as part of her bus tour when she was asked about the Revolutionary War hero.  

LOCAL SAN FRANCISCO NEWS:

Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon draws almost 2,000  Athletes swim past Alcatraz en route to the Marina during the first leg of the 31st annual Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon. The 1 1/2-mile swim was followed by an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run.

The Prettiest Recycling Bin in Town  SFist was walking along Larkin Street near Ellis the other day, amidst the myriad of delicious Vietnamese joints, and were stopped in our tracks by this rather festive-looking recycling bin.

Union Street Festival Side Party Taunts the Booze-Free Event UNION STREET FAIR has “no booze” and no “rock n roll” in the beer gardens this year? Big deal. The bars will be slammed and people will be having fun all over the place. Join us for our 4th Annual “after-party” soiree beginning at 5pm where it all started three years ago, The Republic (formerly JONES). We will be dancing it up in there like Kevin Bacon in “Foot Loose.”  

Apple unveils iCloud at WWDC Apple this morning is scheduled to unveil iCloud, its new suite of online services, at the kickoff of its Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple CEO Steve Jobs is set to lead the keynote, which will also include previews of the next generation of Apple’s operating systems — iOS, which powers iPhones and iPads, and Mac OS X, which runs on laptops and desktops. We’re at Moscone Center this morning, and you can read our liveblog below. Posts will be sporadic until the scheduled kickoff at 10 a.m.

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• Sarah Palin doubles-down on Paul Revere history (popwatch.ew.com)